The mother of Brittanee Drexel said Friday she is going to hire her own private investigators to try to find out who killed her daughter and where.

Drexel was 17 years old when she disappeared while walking outside a hotel in Myrtle Beach during spring break in April 2009.

Drexel’s mom, Dawn Pleckan, and her husband Bob, traveled from Rochester, New York to South Carolina this week to speak with Charleston attorney Andy Savage about her daughter’s case. Pleckan said Savage is very interested.

“It is coming up on Brittanee’s nine-year anniversary that she’s been missing and I believe we should know something at this point,” Pleckan said.

Pleckan said she hasn’t heard from the FBI since 2016.

That’s when investigators revealed that a jailhouse snitch told them Drexel had been taken to a drug house near McClellanville where she was raped, shot dead and thrown into an alligator pit.

“I sat in that room with law enforcement, the FBI and I was in tears,” Pleckan recalled. “My husband had to speak for me because I could not talk.”

Pleckan says every time authorities searched for Drexel she hoped they would find her.

“I have a lot of anxiety due to Brittanee’s disappearance and you do get your hopes up and then they’re shot down again, then you get your hopes up,” she said.

Pleckan is convinced someone knows who killed Brittanee.

“Down in McClellanville, they do know what happened to my daughter. I believe somebody is afraid to come forward,” she said.

She said she does not believe her daughter was a victim of human trafficking.

“I believe Brittanee was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I believe the person who took her, they had their own agenda and they did what they wanted with her,” Pleckan said.

Pleckan said the last nine years have been a roller coaster ride with a lot of ups and downs.

“I have a lot of anxiety due to Brittanee’s disappearance and you do get your hopes up and then they’re shot down again, then you get your hopes up,” Pleckan said.

Pleckan says she’s decided to hire her own team of private investigators to try to find out what happened to Brittanee.

“If this was anybody’s child they would be doing the same thing,” she said. “I’m beyond frustration at this point. I want answers, I want to know what happened to my daughter, where she may be, and we want to bring her home and lay her to rest.”

The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in Drexel’s case.

Pleckan has set up her own tip line. She is hoping anyone with information on her daughter's disappearance will call 585-420-8472.